I don’t think people say that Mass Effect “feels like sci-fi,” or The Witcher “feels like fantasy.” But people do say that Red Dead Redemption “feels like a Western,” and I’m compelled to agree. Why? Listen to the game.

You’re probably wondering what’s taking Valve, a company with nigh-infinite resources, forever to make Half-Life 2: Episode 3. Or you’ve given up on that and you believe it’s going to be called Half-Life 3. The sad truth is that we will never see another Half-Life game from Valve, and for one very good reason: its…

Modder Valplushka gave a thorough overhaul to a quadcopter and brought to life the single most annoying enemy in Half-Life 2. All this time, the dystopian haunts of City 17 were just a town in modern day Russia.

The independently developed Half-Life 2expansion Prospektis now Valve-approved. It’ll be availableon Steam in February. Created by lone indie dev Richard Seabrook, Prospekt continues the story of Half-Life: Opposing Force and threads its way through the narrative of Half-Life 2.

Players have been waiting a while for Valve to release another Half-Life game. It’s taken long enough that it’s easy to forget all the drama that circled Half-Life 2’s development. You know, like a hacker leaking an early version of the game in September 2003, more than a year ahead of its actual release date.

A sequel to Garry’s Mod is in the works. The original, a game/tool/sandbox that began as a Half-Life 2 mod, has spawned more player creations than perhaps anything else in Steam (and maybe even PC gaming) history. The new one is still early. Read more here.

When Combine posters pop up in your apartment building, you should think about moving.3D artist Liam Tart, who’s worked as an environment artist on Alien: Isolation, is remaking a small, familiar section of Half-Life 2 in Unreal Engine 4 to get out of his “usual sci-fi comfort zone.” You can follow his progress here.

It's one thing to see a hand-picked comparison video, it's another to sit down with the real thing ourselves, so I thought I'd fire up the fan-made (but Valve-endorsed) Half-Life 2: Update and see just how improved Valve's classic shooter really is.

Half-Life 2's been around since Kotaku was a bouncing baby blogglette—freshly hatched from its internet egg—but people are still making some brilliant-looking mods for it. Today, one with gut-wrenching atmosphere... and the ability to leap over buildings.

Valve's virtual reality demo at the Game Developers Conference melted my brain. Afterward, my mind swam with possibilities. So of course, I ignored most of them and asked the age-old question: "Half-Life?" Surprisingly, Valve actually had an answer for me.

The story of Half-Life 2 is considered by many to be one of the most memorable in gaming history. I wonder, though, if things would've turned out the same way with the story fans have discovered by combing through an ancient Half-Life 2 beta.